November 8
Then the LORD spoke to Moses that very same day, saying: ‘Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession; and die on the mountain which you ascend…’ Deuteronomy 32:48-50
Of all the things that Moses did by faith, this is the most extraordinary. Moses was not weak or ill, and did not die of natural causes – he simply died by faith. We might wonder how he did it, whether he lay down and waited! The answer lies in the example of Jesus, who also died by faith. He said that no-one could take His life from Him, but that He had power to lay it down and to take it again – John 10:18. Jesus died when He committed His Spirit into the hands of Father and breathed His last. As Christians, we can view death as a door to life’s greatest adventure. The gospel teaches us to die at the end of our earthly days with triumph and with assurance of what awaits us in Jesus’ embrace. But it also teaches us to die daily to sin and self by faith. We do not have to wait for sin to become weak, or self to become frail. We can draw near to God and let go of ourselves in total abandonment to Him. The moment we do this, we find that we are renewed and transformed. We discover the blessed secret that death is an entrance to life. It is not that there is life after death, but rather life after life! There is abundant life after the shadow of life that preceded it. It is a trade-in in which we simply cannot lose. We let go the shabby rags of our own life, and start to discover the glorious robes of His heavenly life. The more we get used to dying daily by faith, the more eagerly we look forward to the time when we trade in our old bodies for new ones!
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